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Thursday, December 3, 2015

Thank you for this letter! I truly feel like coming home is
what I need to do to. When I had my interview with President Henrie I just
explained how I felt and he just randomly said Sister Swenson I think
you need to go home and in that moment a feeling of overwhelming peace came
over me that I have never felt before all day I felt so great and I have not
felt that great until the day before I came out on my mission! I truly believe
that I have other things to do at home and it will be really hard for me to
leave I have been crying non stop for a day! I love these people so much and I
love the missionaries so so much! I really don't want to leave I wish I could
just stick it out but I guess I should probably follow the counsel President Henrie
gave me haha :) I'm so excited to see you and be able to be home for the
holidays oh yeah and to feel like a NORMAL person again! I'm proud of myself
for the things I have done here and for all the amazing experiences I have had
that have shaped my life and made me into a better person! President Henrie
told me that sometimes missions are 4 months, 6 months or 18 months but the
lord is proud of you valiant work and he knows that you learned what you needed
to! And he said that I am always welcome to come back when I feel better :)
haha so ill have that as a goal but who knows what way life will take me :) I'm
excited to see you again and I think ill be home Wednesday! I love you so so
much and thank you for being so supportive! I was really scared but this just
confirmed to me that I am making the right choice! I love you so much and I'm
so excited to see Baby James and Kynlee Mae!! :) And oh I will I will, sister Hoffman
is a true angel that was sent from heaven to help me over these last 4
months!!! We will be friends forever!!! She is truly the greatest person
ever!!! :) I love you and ill see you Wednesday! I think President Henries will
be calling you soon! I think I might be calling you as well, will see anyways
have a wonderful day love you!!

We received the phone call from President Quesenberry
explaining that you are coming home.We wished your mission would have worked out the way you planned but
life is like that most of the time. We know you gave it your all! We know you
tried everything you possibly could and we did too. We fasted and prayed almost
every week, put your name on the prayer rolls of the temple and tried all the
things our minds could think of to help you and prayed that if it was the Lords
will that you could serve the full 18 months.We put it in His hands and know there must be a reason for
all that you've had to go through. Sometimes it doesn't seem fair that things
don't work out like we want but the Lord has a plan for each of us.

You have served and honorable mission and given it all your
heart, might, mind, and strength. He can't ask for more than that and neither
can we. We are so very proud of you and how you stuck it out for almost 5
months with many trials. We know you have learned many good things and habits
that will help you in your life and that your testimony has grown so much. We
know that you touched many lives while you served your mission. We have all
been blessed by your service to God and His children.

We love you so very much and look forward with great
anticipation to your return and getting you feeling better. We hope you will
never feel like you have failed because you couldn't serve the whole time. We
know this will be hard for you to leave but this is the Lords will. I truly
believe it. We can't worry about what others may think. You are being released
because of a real illness just as if some one had cancer or a broken leg and we
are anxious to get you feeling normal again. We have been so worried about you
and it is a relief to know we can help you now at home.

The Lord knows your heart and is mindful of all your trials.
He knew how much courage and faith you showed by being willing to serve. You
had 2 baptisms in your short time and that's more than many who stay out the
full time. You are being released with an honorable release and we are thrilled
as your parents for your obedience and perseverance. We will be waiting with
open arms of love for you. Kynlee said the other day, I miss my Aunt Sophie!!!!
We all have! We hope that you can move forward and continue in life with all
your hopes and dreams. The holidays are here and we will have you back with us
all together again. Please give Sister Hoffman our love and all the others who
have been so kind and helpful.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Well the one thing i know with a-surety is that heavenly father knows his children perfectly and he knows exactly what they need! :) This week i have had some pretty big decisions i have had to make and i know that heavenly father was right by my side through it all! as all of you probably all know i have been struggling everyday with depression and anxiety something i have never experienced until my mission! on friday i had an interview with President Henrie and he told me he has been praying for me each day and feels like i need to go home! when he said that i have never felt so much peace in my life! i know that this is what heavenly father needs me to do, so i will do it! I don't want to leave this place one bit but i have to trust that heavenly fathers plan for me is what will be best! This is probably the hardest thing i have ever done but i know i can do all things through christ and his atonement! President henrie told me that sometimes the missions heavenly father has planned for us are shorter than we've anticipated they can last 4 months or 6 months or 18 months! I know i gave it my best each and everyday and tried everything to stay out but sometimes thats just not what the lord has planned for us! This mission has changed my life completely and i am so so grateful for the things i have been able to experience and go through! I am truly a changed person because of it! :) These people have changed my lives and i will never forget them! I love the gospel of jesus christ so so much and i know it is absolutely true without a doubt! that is something i have learned on my mission is that this church is truly the church christ has set up on the earth! Heavenly Father is in our everyday lives and loves us so so so much! love you all so much! and I'm excited/ really nervous and scared for this new journey ahead of me!

a really cool miracle that happened this week was that me and sister hoffman had 10 extra minutes so we wanted to make the most of them and so we prayed and asked heavenly father that we wanted to find someone we could teach and so we felt inspired to knock on this certain house and they welcomed us in and we taught the restoration! this man had a broken leg and so he has plenty of time to read the Book of Mormon! We said a prayer after and he said he felt so good and happy inside! we get to teach him on tuesday so i am real excited!!! :) Heavenly Father answers prayers!!!

Well again i am so grateful for this time i was able to be a missionary and to experience many different things that have shaped my life and helped me become a better person! "I have fought a good fight i have finished my course, i have kept the faith." i did my absolute best and I'm so grateful for all your prayers! i love you all so so much! :)

Monday, November 2, 2015

Well i hope you all had a happy Halloween! :)

This week not a lot happened...

On monday we carved pumpkins with our zone which was really fun!

Then on tuesday we had a lesson with one of our investigators named luke! we went over to his house and his friend answered the door and was like awe sorry luke isn't here right now, and so we were all disappointed and sad, but then out of the corner of my eye i saw him running down the side walk with his violin waving us down to stop haha He is great and has so many great questions! :) hopefully we will get to teach him this up coming week, he's really busy with school and stuff so its hard to teach him!

Wednesday we had service and i just scooped up a bunch of horse poop the whole time so I'm pretty much pro now :) haha

On Halloween we knocked doors which was interesting.. people didn't know if we were trick or treaters or really missionaries haha we got candy though so that was fun and we also got to help some people put up their halloween decorations :) After we got to have a dinner with our zone and watch the Joseph smith movie! :) It was great!

This week i read such a wonderful talk/ letter called "The ricciardi letter" by danny humphreys you all should read it! If we have faith in god and in his promises we can truly do anything :) In the talk it just talks about how the field is white and already to harvest, its not yellow and ready to be watered or its not brown and ready to be planted! it is white and there are people that are ready to truly make covenants with god! I believe this, we just have to work hard to find them :)

I started to read the book of mormon again and i just love first nephi so much! his obedience to gods commandments is incredible and he has so much faith! if we keep gods commandments we will prosper in the land! :) i know this to be true, if we give our best daily effort he will bless us with all that he has!

I also studied a lot about charity and love! love is the essence of the gospel! when we love god you'll want to serve him and help others around you, and want to keep his commandments! :) i love in 1 peter 4:8 charity can truly prevent a multitude of sin! when we have charity everything else just falls into place :) Charity is everything!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Hello Family,

We are truly blessed to have the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives! I cannot thank my heavenly father enough for blessing me with it! This week i learned a lot about Grace and Gods love for us! I was thinking a lot about why God lets us go through hard things, and if he is a God of love why does he make us suffer through things... As i was pondering this question i started to think about a track coach and how they make you run a lot and in the moment we are like oh my gosh why do they hate me so much and why are they making me run so many miles, why can't i just run 1 mile and call it good, that would really make me happy! but its truly because they love us so much that they make us run a lot of miles, they want us to become better, they see our potential and they see that running those miles can help us win that race! I was thinking also about teachers and the teachers i had in the past that made me study hard and gave me a lot of homework, i would get angry and be like uhh why and didn't really see the importance but now looking back i am grateful for them because i was actually able to learn something and it has come in useful, but with the teachers that let us do whatever and goof off i loved them in the moment and thought it was great but i realized that i didn't learn one thing from them... We can relate this to our heavenly father and how he makes us go through things so that we can earn experience and grow! He makes us go through hard things because he loves us! we would never be able to become like him if we weren't able to experience the blessings of the atonement and we would never turn to him if we didn't experience hard times! sorry if that doesn't make to much sense but it sounded a lot better in my head haha :)

Anyways I'm just really grateful for the challenges that i face because i know it is helping me become a better person and making me more fit to live in gods kingdom again someday :) Also as i was pondering my scripture for this week 2 nephi 31:20 about persevering and enduring to the end i came across this talk by Kevin W. Pearson, called "Stay by the tree" it talks about how enduring to the end is essential to life! it says "Once we enter into covenants with god, there is no going back, giving in, giving up, and giving out are not options." i love that so much! We have covenanted that we would endure trials, that we would stay true to his commandments and try our best each day to give our all and do our best! And as we give our all each day we increase our faith! :)

This week was pretty good! we found 5 new investigators! We meet a hindu family at knock out that invited us in and we were able to teach them about the restoration. they invited us to their prayer room to pray with them, which was really cool! They like veiled our faces and everything haha it was interesting but a cool experience :)

on wednesday we had zone conference! it was 9 hours long... but it was really good! we learned a lot about increasing our faith and the importance of working with members :) I can't wait to be home so i can be a better member for the missionaries! i wish i would have been more involved in referring my non member friends and teaching them more about the gospel and inviting them to activities!

Thursday we were teaching one of our new investigators and we were trying so hard to find a member to be there at their lesson and we couldn't find one so we just showed up to this persons house to teach them and there was no girl there so we had to have it outside and while we were teaching a member just walked by and was like hey can i join you, it was so crazy! the lord is truly in the details of our lives and is so aware of our needs and will just work everything out if we do our best! :)

on Sunday kenny was confirmed! its truly amazing seeing the light just come into their lives! :)

well i hope you are all doing well! :) have a wonderful week! and have a Happy Halloween :)

Love you!!!!

Sister swenson!

I can't wait til Halloween is over, people get WAY into here, and it's creepy!

Our Brazilian friend, who made us Brazilian food. I think I gained 20 pounds..

Monday, October 19, 2015

Hello familia,

This week was soo awesome!! :) I was able to go to the temple with one of our recent converts in the ward named Zach! he is so awesome! And being in the temple was so amazing! Just sitting in the celestial room you really feel like you're truly at home! i love the peace the temple brings! :) on our way home from the temple we drove down with a member and she got pulled over because her tail light was out and so there was 6 missionaries in the car so we decided to teach the police about the restoration of the gospel and gave him a pamphlet and our number haha it was so funny! welcome to the life of a missionary, its the greatest!

We met with Kenny a lot this week to teach him all the lessons he needed to have before his baptism and i have never seen anyone so ready to be baptized! He keeps every commitment we extend to him and is so willing to keep it because he truly wants to follow christ! :)

on Sunday Kenny got baptized!!! oh man the spirit was so strong there! i love baptisms so much! they make the hard work worth it for sure! Jeff ( the one that just got baptized) gave a talk at kennys baptism and it was so awesome! its so cool to see them grow in the gospel in such a short amount of time! After the baptism i was talking with president Henrie and kenny came running right in between us and was like sister swenson and just gave me this huge hug.... haha oh man it was so awkward! haha i didn't know what to do so i just embraced it haha :) My favorite thing about baptisms is their testimony they give after! Kenny gave such a wonderful testimony and just talked about how clean and pure he felt! you could truly see the light shinning from him last night as he was baptized, I'm so grateful i was able to teach him and learn from his example! :)

This week i studied a lot about our baptismal covenants! i was reading the talk by President Eyring on the comforter! "You are a covenant member of the Church of Jesus Christ. a great change began in your heart when you came into to the church. you made a covenant and you received a promise that began changing your very nature." Its so cool to look at the members of this church and really see people being true to the covenants they have made to be there for others and mourn with those and give comfort to those! "Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those who stand in need of comfort and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places." That is why we have a feeling to want to help others that are struggling and going through trials in their lives! we promised that we would help the lord make others burdens light and that we would comfort them when they are sad! we were truly given the power from god to help lighten these loads of the people around us! :) I'm so grateful for the gift of the holy ghost and how i can truly feel the comfort it gives us! we are truly blessed to have this gospel in our lives! :)

Monday, October 12, 2015

This week was one crazy week of up and downs and miracles and blessings! :)

I just want to let everyone know how aware our heavenly father is of our needs and how he is truly with us every step of the way! he really does love us and wants us to be happy! i am so grateful that i have this knowledge :)

Tuesday we were able to see many miracles happen! the day started out really rough and i just wanted to give up...but right before we give up heavenly father sends us a miracle and boy did he bless me and sister hoffman! So tuesdayafternoon we were knocking on doors and we met a young man who's family is all mormons but he has never been baptized and we asked him if he would be interested in learning more and coming to church! He said he would love to come and start learning more and taking lessons! Next miracle of the day was that we were able to move in with our favorite sister missionaries Sister Morris and Sister Groberg! This transfer we got a extra set of missionaries in the YSA ward because there is so much work going on me and sister Hoffman weren't able to handle it by ourselves so we will now be working in the valenica stake which we are really excited about :) its going to be so great to just focus our attention on one side of the valley! Third miracle of the day was, we were having a lesson with our investigator Kenny we have been teaching for 2 weeks and we were teaching him about baptism, and he asked us if he could get baptized this coming saturday! It was such an amazing experience and the spirit was so strong! :) Kenny is such an incredible person! His testimony is so strong and he is so excited to follow the savior by being baptized! :)

Wednesday we went over to the other YSA sisters to help them know which people they need to focus on and give them all the address's and stuff and as we were talking we kind of got off topic and were just talking about food and they were saying oh yeah we went to the grocery store and we totally forgot to get eggs and milk and vegetables and seriously 2 seconds later a random lady called their phone and was like hey sisters we have two huge boxes of food with like milk, eggs, and vegetables would you like it.... IT WAS SO CRAZY! hahah we were just in shock! Its seriously sooooo crazy how aware our heavenly father is of our lives! He just takes care of us! :)

Then on thursday i lost my planner and i couldn't find it anywhere! i searched my bag like three times and it wasn't there and i was trying to look for it everywhere and me and sister hoffman need to start planning our day so i looked one more time in my bag and there it was just magically sitting on the top! I love Heavenly father so much! He truly does care about us and loves us so much! :)

Friday we had service at heart park... so we had to clean out the pigs pen which was "fun" haha not it was so gross! I was asked to distract the pig so it wouldn't bug the others as they were scooping up poop and all that fun stuff... Let me tell you pigs are not very cute... i had to sit there and pet its stomach and it had poop all over it and oh boy was it a fun experience haha all the missionaries were laughing at me...

On Saturday we were able to go to the temple visitors center with Kenny and a couple girls from the ward! it was such an amazing experience! the spirit was so strong and Kenny is so excited to go through the temple one day! :) I LOVE being a missionary so much and seeing peoples lives change!

That night we got to set up a booth at the mall and pass out pass a long cards which was really fun :) Then we had dinner at macaroni grill with bishop and some people from the ward! I love this ward soo much! i never want to leave this place! Everyone is so great! :)

This week for my studies i read the ensign for this month and it was soo good! i loved the talk "My Walk With Him" she says: "We can talk of christ, but it is very different to walk with christ. we need to stay focused on Heavenly Father and the saviors love and ability to succor me. I had to believe that i do matter and that the lord can and will make up for all that i am lacking, only then could i truly turn my broken, fragile heart to him. i believe that he feels my pain and sorrow and is willing to mourn with me, to understand my deepest emotions and feeling of loss."

I know our Heavenly Father and our Savior are there for us! they are there 24/7! we just need to turn to them so we can receive comfort and help! they are just waiting for us to ask! We can truly overcome anything with their help and strength that they lend! I love this gospel so much and i know with all my heart that this is Christ's church that he set up here on the earth when he was here, and that he restored it through the Prophet Joseph smith! :) we are soo blessed to be living in the last dispensation and to have the gospel be apart of our lives!

love you all so much!

Love,

Us with some sisters from the YSA ward and Kenny at the Visitor's Center.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Wasn't Conference AMAZING??? oh man i left so uplifted and wanting to become the person my Heavenly Father created me to be! :) I have a lot to work on thats for sure! I seriously loved every single talk! Elder Oaks, Lawerence, Nelson, and Durrant were probably my favorite! I can't wait to read them again, and really start to ponder and apply the things they said into my daily life! :)

I hope you all enjoyed conference as well! The scripture i am going to ponder this week is Matthew 21:22 so stay tune for next week to see what i learn ;)

Well this week was pretty good! The weather is starting to cool down thank the heavens! it got down into the 60's this weekend and rained :) it started to actually feel like fall!

On Tuesday we had a huge mission service project which was so much fun! We went and put together 2000 care packages for the military :) on Wednesday we got to go back and teach the Chinese family we found last week! it was so cool, we had another missionary in the mission who speaks chinese translate for us and it was such a cool experience to be a part of! They seem pretty interested and we should be going back this week, to teach them more :) On wednesday during knock out, we met a basher who just wanted to tell us everything we were saying was a lie and that we don't believe in jesus and our jesus is fake... but i actually have really come to like meeting bashers because i get the chance to truly testify of what i know to be true and get to just kill them with kindness :) Then on Friday we had another lesson with Kenny! We taught him the plan of salvation! He is definitely progressing and its so awesome to see him grow in the gospel and learn these truths for himself! :) He was able to come to conference and he loved it and told us that he received a lot of answers! Saturday we got our transfer calls and i am staying in YSA with Sister Hoffman!!!!! I AM THE HAPPIEST PERSON EVER!!! hahah i love her so much!! we have become the best of friends!!! and our district pretty much all stayed the same too! we have become a family out here, i love them all so much!! :) this transfer is going to be awesome! I'm really excited for the experiences we will have! The other day at knock out there was this salesman just coming out of a house and we were talking to him and he was like wow you two are just so happy people should really listen to you! :) i love the little tender mercies our heavenly father gives us to help us keep pushing on!

Well this week i was reading a talk called "Wilt thou be made whole? by elder timothy j. Dyches. I loved in his talk how he talks about "As we repent and become converted to the lord, we become whole, and our guilt is swept away. how is it done? because of thy faith in christ." he goes on to say "Be assured the savior still seeks to mend our souls and heal our hearts. he waits at the door and knocks!" His Grace is truly sufficient and you will not walk alone if you have the Savior Jesus Christ in your life!

We are truly so blessed to have this gospel in our lives, everyday i become more and more grateful for it! i am so happy that i don't have to feel lost in this crazy world we live in, but that i can know where i am going, why i am on this earth and where i will go after! I am grateful that i know that death really isn't the end, but its just the beginning of a life of everlasting happiness ahead! I am so grateful for trials and how they can mend us and shape us into the people our heavenly father wants us to be! :)

Have a great week! I love you all so much! :)

Love,

Sister Swenson

Best of friends.

We like to put doggie poop bags on our heads!

Mother and Daughter are staying together!

Squirrels are weird here... They do this all the time! haha. Cracks me up!

Monday, September 28, 2015

This week was AWESOME!!!

Me and Sister Hoffman found 6 new investigators! It was such a blessing! :)

It was the coolest thing ever, so we were knocking doors and we knocked on this chineses families door and told them we were representatives of Jesus Christ and they were like uhh who is Jesus Christ... and so we explained to them who he was, and come to find out they just moved to the U.S. 2 months ago from China! So we started talking to them about Christ and God and they invited us in and we told them about the plan of salvation! it was the coolest experience ever, to see someone learn about god for the first time! :) They all prayed for the first time and it was so beautiful to watch! We asked their son Eric how he felt after he prayed and he said he felt like his heart was warm :) We will be teaching them again on tuesday! :) im sooo excited!!

Then on Friday me and sister Groberg went on exchanges! shes so awesome! So she is in the Saugus Third ward, and Napoleon Dynamite just moved into their ward so i told her that for knock out i wanted to knock around his area so i could meet him. so we went and knocked on his door and his wife answered so we asked if we could get a drink of water and she invited us in, YES i went into NAPOLEON DYNAMITES house, No Big Deal! haha but i didnt get to meet him YET because he was as the swimming pool with his kids! later that day during knock out we met a guy named hunter and we were telling him who we were and we asked if we could share a message with him and he was like yeah i would love that! its always so surprising in those moments when they say yes because we always get so caught off guard that someone said yes and didnt reject us haha but we taught him the restoration and should be going back to teach him again! :)

Then on sunday Two of our investigators came to church which was a miracle! their names are Kenny and Ryan! We just started teaching Kenny he is awesome! He had been researching the church before and one day he called the bishops office and someone just happened to be there and answered the phone and kenny was like can i start meeting with missionaries to learn more about your church, so now we are teaching him and he is so great! He already wants to serve a mission!

well this week i really felt like a true missionary! we were knocking doors and this guy opened the door naked i just turned right around and started running haha people are soo crazy, i dont understand why they think thats a good idea to do that! haha oh well it makes missionary work a little more interesting thats for sure :)

I love being a missionary its been quite the experience!

Well this week i have been studying the song "Consider the lilies" thanks to eli for sending me a super good article on it! but anyways i love the verse that says "The pains of all of the pains of all of them he carried from the day of his birth. he clothes the lilies of the field, he feeds the lambs in his fold, and he will heal those who trust him, and make their hearts as gold." He truly is there with us every step of the way and is helping carrying our burdens! i was reading the talk by President Thomas S. Monson "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." we quotes the poem "good timber does not grow with ease, the stronger wind, the stronger trees. The further sky, the greater length. the more the storm, the more the strength. by sun and cold, by rain and snow in trees and men good timbers grown" i love this so much, as we go through the trials life throws at us we can truly become strengthened by them! he goes on to say "Only the Master knows the depths of our trials, our pain, and our suffering. he alone offers us eternal peace in times of adversity. he alone touches our tortured souls with his comforting words." "Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, he is with us. He has promised that this will never change." I have such a strong testimony that he really is with us! He wants us to be happy and so he is there to comfort us when we are sad and lifts us up when we are burdened! "He loves each of us, that love never changes, it is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. it is simply there. it is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. its there if you feel like you deserve it or not. we will understand that we never walk alone. i promise one day you will look at your difficult times, and you will realize that he was always there beside you." I am so grateful for a prophet who leads and guides our church and for the revelation he receives for us here on earth! :) It has been such an amazing experience to run house to house and invite people to come listen to a prophets voice! we truly take it for granted that we have a prophet that is a true mouth piece of our Heavenly Father!

I love the story in Matther 14:17-36

Im sure Jesus just wanted to be alone but he told the multitude to stay and then he went and saved his apostles that were fearing the storm. I just want to be so selfless like the Savior was! To turn outward and not care about what i want but how i could best help someone else!Well i am soooooo excited for General Conference!! its like the Super Bowl for missionaries haha! i hope you all are doing well! Thanks again for all your prayers and support! you guys are the best and i love you all soo much!! :)

Monday, September 21, 2015

Hello Family!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful week! :)

This week was a growing week for sure, I have had a lot of health problems like many of you may have heard since I have been out on my mission, and ive been wondering why I have to go through this and why cant I just be a normal missionary... but the lord likes us to learn and grow and stretch! It was really cool, I was sitting in church the other week pondering on why I was going through these things and what Heavenly Father wanted me to learn through it all... and I had this overwhelming feeling that I am going through these things/struggles so I can be able to help others cope with it later on in the future and with companions I will have! I know there is a reason why we go through everything, we may not realize why we have to at the moment but heavenly father has a reason behind everything! :) I love the talk by Elder Holland- "Like a Broken Vessel" it has helped me so much on my mission! Depression and Anxiety are such real things and so common now days! It says "Never lose faith in your Heavenly Father who loves you more than you can comprehend." "That love never changes. it is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. gods love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve it. it is simply always there." "If the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days ahead." "Like a broken vessel that vessel is in the hands of the divine potter. broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed." This talk Is so amazing! I Know that Heavenly Father can help us overcome every challenge we face as long as we have faith that he can! All he asks of us is to do our best each day! :) I know the gospel can heal everyone if we will let it! The gospel is so amazing and I love it more each and everyday!

This week I have been studying more about faith! I was reading in Matthew 9:28-29 and it says half way down "Believe ye that I am able to do this? they said unto him, yea lord." "According to your faith be it unto you." Our Heavenly Father has given us so many blessings and we can receive those blessings if we have enough faith that we know we will receive them! I think that it is so cool in that verse how it says according to your faith be it unto you! its so true he blesses us and say well okay now its up to you to believe if it will really happen! :) I am so grateful for this gospel! and for my savior jesus Christ! He is always there for us and knows every pain and discomfort we feel!

Well on Wednesday we went to service and we do service at a Animal place and after service the lady that runs it told us we could go feed the deer with her! so I was able to feed a real life deer, I was in the cage and everything with it! it was so cool! :) I will send a picture next week! :) The work has been really slow the last couple of week, we haven't found any investigators and we aren't teaching anyone... but we did meet a potential investigator this week during knock out which was a blessing! He seems pretty interested so we will be setting up an appointment with him this coming week! :) We have been working with a lot of recent converts and less actives, which is fun! we have been able to bring back 3 people! I love seeing people come back to church and really seeing the light come back into their lives! It has been so cool to see Alexis coming each week and having greater strength to resist temptation! He has been reading 3 chapters a day in the book of Mormon and is preparing himself to take the sacrament again! :) The work is truly so great! I love being a missionary even though it is the hardest thing I have ever done, it is so worth every slammed door in my face, every hard day I have had, and every little moment of homesickness to see people come and change their lives to experience complete happiness! :)

I Hope you all have a great week! thanks for all your prayers and support! I truly have the best family and friends anyone could ever have!! :)

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

This week in my studies i have learned so much about trusting in the lord and having peace through trials we face! i love the hymn where can i turn for peace! It has become one of my favorites on my mission! "Who, Who can understand? he only one! he answers privately, reaches my reaching. in my gethsemane, savior and friend. gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching. constant he is and kind, love without end." Our savior Jesus Christ is the one who truly understands us! He is with us each and everyday! he really does reach our reaching! I think the reason i really needed to come on a mission was so that i could learn to really gain more trust in my heavenly father and savior! i have had to rely on them each and everyday to face my fears and to find comfort as i am away from home :) I know that as we do our part and do everything that we can to be the best and be obedient that our savior will take care of the rest and help us!

I also love the hymn "does the Journey seem long?" i love the line "There is one who still beckons to you, look up and grab hold of his hand." The Gospel is truly so simple. All we have to do is turn to our savior and be obedient, and we will be blessed! yeah there will be trials that come along our way but thats just apart of life. the Gospel can give you comfort through those times!

I was reading a really good talk by Dallan R. Moody, called "What happens when life gets 1 degree colder" i encourage you all to read it! it is so awesome!!! :)

Well anyways this week was really awesome!!!

IT RAINED!!! funny story! so the night before it rained i prayed for rain, and i woke up and there were no clouds to be found in the sky and it made me a little sad but i didn't loose hope. so i packed my rain coat and umbrella just to show my faith that it would rain haha and sister hoffman was like uhh sister swenson why are you bringing your rain coat and i was like its going to rain! and she was like uhh okay whatever you say :) and then the clouds started to roll in and IT RAINED!!! Heavenly Father answers prayers everyone!!! :) it was a miracle!!!

on Friday during knock out we found so many potential investigators, it was awesome!! :) I'm so excited to start teaching them! :) They all seem really interested and have a desire to learn more! so hopefully it all goes well!

On saturday sister hoffman had the feeling we should go over to our neighbors house and ask her if we could help her clean her house! so we did! our neighbor has been going through a lot her husband has been gone for a while visiting family in mexico and we could just tell she had been really stressed lately, with trying to take care of her daughter and go to work, so we went over and asked her if we could help her clean! she said we could and she had piles and piles of dishes and poop from there cats all over, it was really gross but it felt good to help someone out and to get to know our neighbor better :) she was telling us that she had been praying before we came for help to make it through the day! its so cool to be an answer to someones prayer! God is so aware of our lives and wants to help us, so he sends people to help ease our burdens! She was so sweet, after we got done cleaning she took us out to lunch! people are so kind out here and really follow christ example even if they aren't members of our church! :)

Sunday was so amazing! we were able to attend the YSA devotional where elder whitney clayton talked! his talk was so inspiring! it made me so excited for conference!!! :)

Well i hope you all have a fabulous week! i love you all so much! thanks for all your prayers and support! talk to you next week! :)

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Hello Family and Friends,

well not much has happened this week! its been kind of slow, we don't have any progressing investigators so thats sad! :/ This week we will find some though :) Yesterday we had dinner with Jeff and his brother and Sister in law that want to start taking the discussions so that was awesome!! :) They are seriously so great and so kind to us!!

This week in my personal studies i have been studying about faith and i was reading in Mark 4:38-41, "and he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?" "And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, peace, be still. and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm." " and he said unto them, why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?" i love this scripture so much because at least for me sometimes i feel like heavenly father hello do you not care that I'm freaking out right now and scared out of my mind but then he says now now sophie why are ye so fearful and I'm like oh yeah i have heavenly father on my side and he can help me through everything! :) i love the scriptures so much, i wish i could just read them all day! :) i know that when we make God a bigger part of our lives our problems will become smaller :)

Also today i was reading in the bible dictionary under the word sheep and it says "Shepherds still, as of old, go before the sheep, and the sheep follow, being apparently more or less attached to their masters, whose voice they instantly recognize" i love how at the end it says whose voice they instantly recognize! its true we can truly always recognize the sweet calm peace we receive or the voice of the prophets as his voice!

This week when we were knocking doors we ran into a lot of Jehovah witnesses, and this one particular lady was getting all up in our face about how the book of mormon is false and how it only talks about joseph smith and so i said oh no the book of mormon is only about jesus christ, have you read it before? and she was like yeah i have and it only talks about joseph smith... i was like well thats weird because the book of mormon i read only talks about Jesus Christ! haha i wish people would just really find out for themselves! the book of mormon is truly from god and only speaks of christ! I know that we can find greater happiness by reading it! i know because i have seen it in my life! :)

Im so excited for general conference, i cannot wait to listen to a prophet of God!! only a couple of weeks!!! YAY!

Well i love you all so much, sorry it was kind of a boring email! but i hope you all had a great week! thanks for all your prayers and emails! Talk to you next week :)